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"Ever wonder if City Council is as contentious and chaotic as it is sometimes portrayed? Here you can get a progressive perspective on some of the issues from someone who spent four years in the trenches. Totally unbiased, though!Feel free to comment but keep it respectful, just like they do at council."

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Orchestra London: Staying alive

The agenda for the Investment and
Economic Prosperity Committee (IEPC) didn't look too onerous—only
four scheduled items, all of them consent items. In short, they were
routine items that don't require any special direction to staff
other than an indication that the committee is aware of progress to
date and to allow the normal process to go ahead. I'll be home for
dinner, I thought.

And so I was. The meeting ended about
an hour after it began at four o'clock. Not only had the four items
been discussed and dispensed with, the mayor had found something
costing only a million dollars or so to recommend as part of the
budget debates that will continue next week.

The meeting began with Councillor Matt
Brown in the chair since the official chair, Councillor Joe Swan, had a conflict of interest on the first item, releasing some grant money to
his employer, Orchestra London.

Ever since the orchestra came to the
city in 2009 to ask council to provide a guarantee for a half
million dollar line of credit it needed to keep afloat, the orchestra has had
to report to council how it is doing on its road to economic
sustainability. That sustainability includes an annual grant from the
Community Arts Investment Program funded by London taxpayers. If the
organization runs too high an accumulated deficit, as Orchestra
London had done, it needs to get special permission from the council
to have its payment released in advance of the passing of the budget. Therefore, on a yearly basis, the
Orchestra brings its financial reports to council and asks to have
the next grant installment released.

This was the case on Monday afternoon.
Newly appointed board chair, Joseph O'Neill acknowledged that things
had been difficult over the past year. The orchestra had lost two
corporate sponsors—Western University and General Dynamics—and
had run into problems when one of its partners opted out of a program
that should have brought in some revenue. Although some changes had
been made in programming, at least one of these had resulted in
reduced subscriptions and increased reliance on the sale of single
tickets. It's hard to do good budgeting on the basis of unpredictable
ticket sales.

The problems of Orchestra London are
not unique. While arts and culture are billion dollar businesses in
London, they have two major costs: talent and overhead. They make the
difference between a recording and a concert. Hearing a real
orchestra in a real performance hall with hundreds of other music
lovers is a very different experience from listening to a CD on your
way to work no matter how good the equipment on which it is played.
But that difference has to be paid for. You can listen to same $20 CD
many times but a symphony with forty or fifty some odd artists needs
to be paid for each performance and that adds up despite the fact
that most are significantly underpaid. Then too, to really appreciate
the sound, the surroundings have to be right with good acoustics and
sight lines. And, if you are going to sit for two hours, the seats
had better be comfortable.

There is no doubt that the artists who
make up Orchestra London, along with its artistic director, Alain
Trudel, are very talented. There is also little doubt that the venue,
Centennial Hall, built on the cheap in 1967 with a federal government
grant, is neither comfortable nor attractive. Nor is it cheap to
rent.

All of these factors make it hard to
keep the orchestra afloat, especially at a time when money is tight.
O'Neill, with a strong financial background at Price Waterhouse,
recognized the challenge. The orchestra had lost some sponsorships
because of the venue; former sponsors claimed they were embarrassed
to take their clients there.

They are not alone. While I attend
regularly, many of my acquaintances have said they stay away because
of the venue.

But Orchestra London has a plan. Last
year it formed a new public/private partnership called Music London
which is to be a “prosperous facility and event management company”
to foster the advancement of the London music industry.

The proposal Music London put to IEPC
last summer was the building of a performance hall at a cost of
$40M. Most of this, they believed, could be obtained from other
levels of government and private donations. All that was needed was
$10M from the city over 10 years to kick-start the whole project. Although the orchestra is somewhat short on corporate sponsors for its programming, many local developers seem to be enthusiastic about this proposal, offering to sit on a special task force to make this happen.

That proposal has gone to newly
recruited staff which is evaluating that proposal along with 48
others, including one from the Grand Theatre for an expansion to its
current building to create a performance hall. The Grand is
requesting the city donate a piece of property worth about $2M to
swap with the owner of the property adjacent to its building. It
believes it can raise the rest itself.

Then, long after the deadline for
proposals had passed, Shmuel Farhi, London's biggest property owner
got a sympathetic hearing from the committee. If he had known the
city was thinking of putting some money into a performance hall, he
would have put in a proposal too. He had the perfect property for it.
Wouldn't charge anything for the property, either. He could put in
some condos on top. It wouldn't cost the city anything. Later, he had
to clarify that the city would have to pay for the building; he would
just offer up some land to put it on if he could put some stuff on
top. Apparently, he would prefer that to doing something with the
many properties he already owns and which are standing vacant.

These proposals undoubtedly bring some
discomfort to city staff. Although Farhi is a johnny-come-lately in
this, he is an influential force in London. He usually knows what is
happening at council before the council itself. The administrators of
the Grand Theatre have shown themselves to be financially astute and
responsible, capable of extensive renovations while keeping an eye on
the bottom line.

Orchestra London, on the other hand,
has a much more troubled financial history. Although it has managed
to operate in the black the last few years, its profits have been
declining from nearly $70,000 last year to just over $5,000 this
year. Even that has been largely a result of reductions in spending
rather than increased revenues. How can it raise capital for a
proposed “Celebration Centre” when it can't raise enough money to
meet its operating needs? O'Neill himself acknowledged that, without
the injection of the CAIP grant, the orchestra would be facing
bankruptcy.

Still, the Orchestra London/Music
London proposal does have one compelling feature: its executive
director Joe Swan sits on council. Not that he can or will vote; but
all his colleagues and the staff know who he is. It's hard not to
take that into account when making or endorsing recommendations.

And so, it has been recommended that the two
proponents prepare a “fairness report” for review at a
public consultation meeting. That will allow the community to make
an “independent suggestion as to the most logical investment
opportunity for the City.” No mention of the late entry by Farhi.

In the meantime the committee, save and
except Stephen Orser who thinks his ward is not interested, voted to support releasing some money from the
CAIP grant to the orchestra until the matter is fully dealt with at budget. That
should keep the wolf from the door for a couple of months.

But given the way this council has been
voting at the budget meetings, there are no guarantees of what may
happen there.

As for the funding for economic
prosperity initiatives, at present there is none. Whether there can
be any agreement on how to do that remains to be seen. Right now,
council is a long way from zero, there are millions of dollars needed
for the Normal School, and the committee just endorsed the mayor's
suggestion to put aside another million dollars to save Lorne Avenue Public School.

Surely before we go down this road there must be a reality check. There is no issue with the talent; there is an issue with spending millions of dollars supported by "Public Dollars" whether from Provincial, Federal or Municipal on something that will forever demand major subsidies to exist. Patron revenus will never come close.

There is a financial crisis and the only way to survive is millions of dollars from us. (includes federal, provincial or municipal dollars). If patrons can't cover and given last financial statement review major capital expenditure is wrong! This has nothing to do with quality of personnel it has to do with community reality!